Comments and Analysis from John Robertson on the Middle East, Central Asia, and U.S. Policy

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Political Murders on the Rise in Iraq

Tony Shadid in the NY Times, on how as many as 20 gunmen who arrived in pickup trucks and then went door to door, hunted down and killed a politician allied with Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc, which won a narrow victory in the March elections but will likely be denied an influential role in the new Iraqi government (when/if it's ever formed). One politician elected in March, but yet to be seated, stated that:

“Members of Parliament have had to stay inside their homes for two months now, and no one is getting any security protection from either the police or the army . . . .“I expect it to get worse."

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I've been a professor of ancient Near Eastern and modern Middle Eastern history at Central Michigan University since 1982. I was formally trained as an Assyriologist and Ancient Near East specialist [Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania], but since 1984, I have also been teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Islamic and "modern" Middle Eastern history.
My book, "A Short History of Iraq," will soon be published by OneWorld Publications. You can find most of my published opinion pieces at the "War in Context" site. My scholarly publications appear in various academic journals and edited volumes.